The Exiled Blade (The Assassini) - By Jon Courtenay Grimwood Page 0,53

he thought they were behind his niece’s abduction.

“How is her child?”

“Getting so fat you’d barely recognise him.”

Prince Alonzo shot a sideways glance that was almost amused.

“And Lady Maria?” Tycho asked in his turn. “This isolation must be hard for a young heiress more used to Venice’s glories.”

“She’s pregnant.” Alonzo paused, and Tycho realised he was meant to congratulate the man, which he did. “Heavily pregnant. She keeps to her room.”

“My lord, I’m offering you the Blade.”

The Regent looked at him. He stared into Tycho’s face, though the darkness must have reduced it to shadow, and then he turned and stamped his way to where Lord Roderigo stood, cutting him out of the crowd and leading him aside. The argument was fierce, and Alonzo returned with a scowl on in his face. “It’s a trick,” he said. “You must think I’m stupid.”

“No trick,” Tycho promised. “No trick at all, my lord.”

“Then prove it. Perform a task.”

“Whatever you ask.”

“You swear that?”

“I swear it.”

“Good.” Alonzo smiled. “Kill Alexa. Bring me proof.”

23

The duchess sat with her son in one of the kitchens. The staff were neither told to stay nor go, but had chosen to leave and Alexa let them. In truth, she barely noticed, being too busy sautéing snails in a hot pan.

“Your favourite,” Alexa said. She watched her son sniff the air, grin at the smell of garlic and butter, and look puzzled. How, he obviously wondered, did Mother find snails in midwinter? She let him wonder. Lifting a lid, Alexa spooned half the snails on to a platter for him and loaded half on to another for her.

“Eat,” she said, handing him a pin.

The duke dug happily into a hot shell and chewed, even closing his eyes to savour the garlic as he’d done as a child, before his illness. The word tasted sour and she winkled out a snail and chewed the taste away. Marco was already swallowing his second and reaching for a third, grinning at his burnt fingers. That, too, reminded her of his childhood. He’d always mixed contemplation with sudden awkward enthusiasms. Snails would become his new favourite.

“This one’s a-alive,” he said holding up a shell.

“Really?” Before he could ask how an uncooked snail got into the pot she slid in a question of her own. “How would you get it out?”

Marco dug with his pin and the snail shrivelled, retreating behind the turns in its shell until the pin couldn’t reach.

“You could stamp on it,” Alexa suggested.

“All that b-broken shell.”

“Indeed.” Lifting the pot’s lid, she helped herself to a little more melted butter and diced garlic, and was about to replace the lid when Marco shook his head. Grinning, he dropped his live snail into the sizzling liquid. “Finish mine,” Alexa said, “while you’re waiting.”

And so we teach our young. Well, so she taught Marco. One live snail among those already cooked. Had he understood the lesson? With Marco it was hard to know . . . “D-done,” he said, scooping the snail from the pot.

“Good boy. Tomorrow I’ll have someone take you skating.”

“On the b-big ice?”

“The canal behind the palace,” she said and watched his face. She’d love to let him skate on the lagoon, however many guards it took, and however many times he fell over; since, not having skated before, most Venetians were clumsy . . . But that would take everyone’s eyes off Frederick and Giulietta, and Alexa had her own reasons for wanting the public to watch them.

A cobbler in San Croce made himself rich by persuading a metalworker to fashion blades that could be nailed directly to the soles of sturdy boots. The cobbler then left a pair at the palace door for Lady Giulietta, and a pair outside the Fontego dei Tedeschi for Prince Frederick, with whom the whole city knew she’d been walking on the ice.

Bone skates had been used for ever.

Well, as far as Giulietta knew. A chamberlain so old his eyes were sightless and his voice a whisper remembered metal skates from the last time the canals froze, but those had been tied on and were blunt enough for their owners to need poles to push themselves along. To nail the blades directly to the boots was genius. Aunt Alexa had all but ordered Giulietta to try them out.

Within two days the cobbler had more orders than he could meet. Other cobblers suddenly found themselves busy, and the Duchess Alexa gave dispensation for a foundry to relight its furnace and burn precious fuel turning out blades